The biggest non Irish scandal of the past 20 years that completely shocked you?

IvaBigWun

The News Of The World scandal and demise; I wasnt surprised that such things went on behind the scenes in a rag. What was surprising though was that Murdoch shut it down

OJ Simpson being found not guilty in his criminal trial.

And probably the biggest shocker of all; Jimmy Savile. What a vile man.

So if we were to put a time frame on it of 1993 to the present day, what was the biggest scandal of the past 20 years that completely shocked and surprised you?

Mint Aero

IvaBigWun wrote: »

The News Of The World scandal and demise; I wasnt surprised that such things went on behind the scenes in a rag. What was surprising though was that Murdoch shut it down

He changed the name of the paper and it carried on trading pretty much the next day

spank_inferno

The surrender of economic soverignty brought on by the unnecessary payout of the losing gambling bets of French / German & US pension funds on the Irish banking sector.

diomed

Someone was never a member of the IRA.

BillyMitchel

Ben Dunne doing all the coke from the hookers arse.

meoklmrk91

I suppose the Jimmy Saville thing, not that he was what he was but the extent of it, the amount of people involved in it and the amount of people that must have been involved in the cover up.

IvaBigWun

Mint Aero wrote: »

He changed the name of the paper and it carried on trading pretty much the next day

True. He even went with the tagline for it as; "all the News in the World"

Even still, closing down what was said by many to be his media baby couldnt have been an easy decision for the miserable bastard to make

WoollyRedHat

The Xtravision Xbox 1 controversy (XX1), it really shock the foundations of the state, and will still be fresh in many people's memory.

spank_inferno

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

The Xtravision Xbox 1 controversy (XX1), it really shock the foundations of the state, and will still be fresh in many people's memory.

It will be written of for generations.

BillyMitchel

Clinton getting sucked off in the Oval Office has to be up there.

Magdalin laundries.

Saville.

Abuse in the boys homes.

I'm only early 30s so they'd be the biggest if my generation I'd say.

sadie06

The Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky thing sticks out in my mind as being an enjoyable scandal of the juicy sort.

I remember being fairly scandalised when the news of exactly how Michael Hutchence died broke. I was in my very early 20's, and it was the first time I had ever heard of what a good friend of mine calls a 'chokey ****'. They were more innocent times for sure! :-)


Bishop Casey would be a good home grown one.

Edited to add: I seem to have struck the wrong tone here. I tend to associate 'scandal' with 'gossip'. Of course all of the above mentioned happenings are far weightier in comparison to my list.

Eutow

That ol' Bertie really was the most devious and cunning of them all.

hatrickpatrick

I always knew the American government was probably spying on people over the internet, but the sheer scale of it was something I literally never even considered - the idea that an agency could literally intercept all internet traffic worldwide and rifle through it seemed technologically impossible. PRISM was surprising enough, but it was the "Upstream" slide which detailed the direct tapping of international fibre optic cables by both the Brits and the NSA and the copying of everything flowing through them for potential rifling through which I never dreamed of.

I still find it quite surprising that PRISM has dominated media coverage of the whole scandal, the fact that the NSA has access to tech company's servers is certainly a scandal, but I personally would have thought the fact that they literally wiretap the entire internet itself through cable tapping would be far more scandalous, and yet a lot of people aren't even aware of that aspect to the spying since it didn't get as much media coverage.

spank_inferno

sadie06 wrote: »

Bishop Casey would be a good home grown one.

What was weird with the above was Ireland was more shocked that he has a hetrosexual relationship with an actual woman.

Had he abused some kids there would not have been half the scandal.

IvaBigWun

Eutow wrote: »

That ol' Bertie really was the most devious and cunning of them all.

sadie06 wrote: »

Bishop Casey would be a good home grown one.

Ive amended the thread title, we had more than our fill of Bertie and Co here

hfallada

The Americans spying on everyone and everything. Everyone thought may be they were spying on a few countries no one liked. But spying on everyone in the German government p

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Rooney not getting sent off on Sunday.

/ thread.

IvaBigWun

Arnold Schwarzenegger riding his maid

foggy_lad

Those orphanages that were found full of babies and children in Romania. Some had minor defects which would have been easily treated even in Romania but in that regime they were defective and not worth bothering about and left to die in their own faeces.

It reminded me of the hospitals around Ireland that have child psychiatric wards and places like st Ita's where children are left to die.

massdebater

Not sure if it counts as Irish or non-Irish (don't want to start that argument) but after everyone going on the lookout for Michaella Connolly for a week when she went missing in Ibiza, I was genuinely shocked when I found out that she was found in Peru trying to smuggle a load of drugs. I don't get chocked easily but I was actual mouth-wide-open shocked when I heard that.

Sunglasses Ron

IvaBigWun wrote: »

And probably the biggest shocker of all; Jimmy Savile. What a vile man.

I don't recall Savile's TV heyday at all (oddly enough seeing as it seems Jim'll Fix It was on until 94 I think, but I don't remember it). What struck me the most was not the scandal, but upon watching the Louis Theroux documentary, how such an odious, nasty little prick became so beloved as an eccentric national grandad. I mean, if he was some really nice, genuine seeming guy, I would have been shocked, but instead, apart from the abuse side, he was a nasty, narcissistic miserable c'unt who just so happened to raise a few quid for charity.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I always knew the American government was probably spying on people over the internet, but the sheer scale of it was something I literally never even considered - the idea that an agency could literally intercept all internet traffic worldwide and rifle through it seemed technologically impossible. PRISM was surprising enough, but it was the "Upstream" slide which detailed the direct tapping of international fibre optic cables by both the Brits and the NSA and the copying of everything flowing through them for potential rifling through which I never dreamed of.

I still find it quite surprising that PRISM has dominated media coverage of the whole scandal, the fact that the NSA has access to tech company's servers is certainly a scandal, but I personally would have thought the fact that they literally wiretap the entire internet itself through cable tapping would be far more scandalous, and yet a lot of people aren't even aware of that aspect to the spying since it didn't get as much media coverage.

I still can't fathom how people are so shocked about this. It is not revelations as such. It was simply confirming what was unconfirmed common knowledge, that the US and its closer allies have had the ability to monitor and record every single phone and internet communication since at least the late 90's. The only thing that shocked me about the Snowden affair was that people had no clue this happened- haven't you heard of "terror chatter"? I saw a good documentary on the Echelon surveillance network on Channel 4 years before 9/11.

Sunglasses Ron

massdebater wrote: »

Not sure if it counts as Irish or non-Irish (don't want to start that argument) but after everyone going on the lookout for Michaella Connolly for a week when she went missing in Ibiza, I was genuinely shocked when I found out that she was found in Peru trying to smuggle a load of drugs. I don't get chocked easily but I was actual mouth-wide-open shocked when I heard that.

I started laughing myself :pac:

In truth I can't think of many scandals abroad that shocked me. Ireland, and FF in particular, have a bit of a monopoly on the jaw dropping arrogance middle finger to the electorate side of things. I suppose the ever increasing list of Clinton and Berlusconi's women and orgys was pretty entertaining mind :pac:

Hobbes

Apart from Saville, I would have to say the collapse of Enron.

Their emails are all public record, so you can data mine for some gems of the stuff that went on. For example for a laugh they rang up a power station and told them to shut the station down, so as to simulate a power shortage. How they got away with it for so long is just incredible.

gramar

The banks, particularly Anglo and developers. The property boom and bust.

force eleven

Joseph Fritzl

danniemcq

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Rooney not getting sent off on Sunday.

/ thread.

don't forget Mirallas too.

Still on a footy type story I know it was fairly widely known by many but the sheer scale of the cover up applied by the cops about the Hillsborough
Disaster still is quite shocking.

The selling of Arms to both Iraq and Iran by the states is another.

In fact you could name quite a lot of things in the middle east.

abu ghraib, the torture of prisoners, the killings of unarmed civilians etc

on a i guess happier note, the Nasa love triangle was a crazy one involving kidnapping, pepper spray and adult diapers.

the Russian Spy ring caught in the states too. Although that did have the bonus of revealing Anna Chapman to the world (and if I was Edward Snowden I would have accepted that proposal on Twitter!)

IvaBigWun

Hobbes wrote: »

Apart from Saville, I would have to say the collapse of Enron.

Their emails are all public record, so you can data mine for some gems of the stuff that went on. For example for a laugh they rang up a power station and told them to shut the station down, so as to simulate a power shortage. How they got away with it for so long is just incredible.

There's a great documentary on it all on the Irish Netflix

foxyboxer

Bernard Madoff.

65 billion dollar ponzi scheme and the SEC ineptitude (possible collusion) which allowed it to continue.

snubbleste

Genocide - Up to a million people slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 whilst the world twiddled collective thumbs
Iraq - The 'coalition' invading a sovereign country under false pretences, daily slaughter continues to this day
USA - Populace voting George Bush in again 2004

[-0-]

Ted Cruz. Everything he has done for the past 20 years should shock everyone.

Maximus Alexander

danniemcq wrote: »

the Russian Spy ring caught in the states too. Although that did have the bonus of revealing Anna Chapman to the world (and if I was Edward Snowden I would have accepted that proposal on Twitter!)

From her Wikipedia entry:

[B]Occupation[/B]       Entrepreneur, television host, and
                 [I]agent of the Russian Federation[/I]

I love the sometimes hilariously matter of fact way that Wikipedia presents information.

IvaBigWun

The formerly beloved cyclist, Tour de France champion, cancer survivor (twice?) and philanthropist, Lance Armstrong would be up on this list